Exhibit B.-An act to declare the purpose of the people of the United States as to the future political status of the people of the Philippine Islands, and to prescribe a more autonomous government for Exhibit C.-Extract from the naval appropriation act for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1917, approved August 29, 1916...... Exhibit D.-An act to amend an act entitled "An act to codify, revise, and amend the laws relating to the judiciary," approved March 3, Exhibit E.-An act to amend the Judicial Code; to fix the time when the an- REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF INSULAR AFFAIRS TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR. WAR DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF INSULAR AFFAIRS, Washington, September 30, 1916. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the Bureau. of Insular Affairs for the past year. I. PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. PERSONNEL APPOINTED BY THE PRESIDENT. Hon. Clinton L. Riggs, secretary of commerce and police, resigned October 31, 1915, and was succeeded by Hon. Eugene E. Reed, who was appointed May 24, 1916. Hon. Winfred T. Denison, secretary of the interior, resigned March 31, 1916. Hon. Jaime C. de Veyra, member of the Philippine Commission, resigned to accept the position of executive secretary of the Philippine Islands on April 7, 1916. The Philippine Commission is now composed as follows: Vice Governor and Secretary of Public Instruction: Secretary of Finance and Justice: Secretary of Commerce and Police: There has been no change in the personnel of the Philippine Supreme Court during the past year. Under the new Philippine bill, approved August 29, 1916, the President is vested with authority to appoint the auditor and deputy auditor of the Philippine Islands. Mr. Clifford H. French and Mr. Irving B. Dexter were reappointed as auditor and deputy auditor, respectively. LEGISLATION. The Philippine Islands were so fortunate at the last session of Congress as to obtain all the legislation which the department and the Philippine government requested. I attach to this report copies of the laws and parts of laws affecting only the Philippine Islands passed at this session of Congress. Congress ratified those acts of the Philippine Legislature either assuredly or possibly requiring such ratification. These were acts with reference to internal revenue. Congress continued the authority for the Filipino cadets at the Military Academy and granted similar authority for Filipino cadets at the Naval Academy. For the first time since the American occupation of the Philippine Islands a vessel owned by citizens of the Philippine Islands and registered under the Philippine laws on December 6, 1915, arrived in a port of the United States. It was found that existing law did not treat such vessels as vessels of American registry, but required the payment of tonnage taxes and light dues. After consultation with the Department of Commerce it was recommended that such vessels should be given a status on arriving in American ports of American vessels, and there was included in the sundry civil bill a provision accomplishing this purpose and authorizing the refund of taxes paid in the case of the Philippine vessel that had arrived in an American port. In addition to the foregoing minor matters, Congress passed the Philippine bill. The prior efforts to obtain this legislation were recited in the last annual report. At the meeting of Congress in December, 1915, Senator Hitchcock in the Senate, and Mr. Jones in the House of Representatives, promptly reintroduced the bill. It was taken up first in the Senate. The Senate committee gave extended hearings to persons interested in the legislation and to persons whom it desired to hear. The committees gave attentive and most patient hearings to the department on the bill, and the administrative features of the bill differ so slightly from what was urged by the department that it would be hypercritical to point out these slight differences. Indeed it would be folly to do so, in that the differences having been made after such careful consideration of what was urged may well be improvements on the departmental recommendations. It is probable that any person, after a careful analysis of the bill, could select some point which, in his opinion, might be better otherwise. It would be very difficult to draw a bill of which this would not be true, and then it would be more difficult, if not impossible, to secure its enactment. The Philippine bill is probably the best organic act which has ever been passed by Congress. It would be a reflection on the intelligence of the committees who had devoted so much time to the preparation of this bill, with all the lessons of experience available, if it were otherwise. It is doubtful if any similar piece of legislation has received more careful and thoughtful consideration. On the preamble of the bill there was a wide divergence of opinion. There was, however, a general agreement that the body of the bill, which constitutes the administrative features, was admirably adapted to its purpose. After a visit to the Philippine Islands in 1915, in a special report to the Secretary of War, I commented as follows on this bill: The Americans in the islands seemed almost unanimously to favor the administrative features of the Jones bill, but a majority seemed to be unfavorable to the preamble. Generally speaking, all who had studied the bill so as to understand fairly well its provisions seemed to favor the bill as it was, or favored it with a desire that the preamble should be omitted, and that appointments by the Governor General should be effective without the confirmation of the senate created by the bill. It is doubtful if there are any persons in the Philippines who consider political questions who do not feel that there should be some legislation along the general lines of that proposed. Certainly I received no intimation that there were such during my visit to the islands. The reason for this was quite evident to those who have followed conditions in the islands during the past 8 or 10 years. The opinion is practically unanimous that the form of government established in the islands, with an appointive commission as the upper house of the legislature, an elective assembly for the lower house, and with the commission, or upper house, given exclusive legislative authority over one-third of the territory of the archipelago, was no longer workable. The disagreements between the two houses had assumed an almost irreconcilable form. This was displayed in the failure for three years of the legislature to agree on a budget, the most important legislation committed to it. That the failure of the government in its legislative branch was not more apparent was due almost entirely to the personal affection of the Filipinos for Gov. Forbes, then Governor General. This feeling, which enabled Gov. Forbes to obtain the passage of many bills through the lower house of the legislature, was manifested at the time in many ways and I can testify that it remains, now that Gov. Forbes is no longer in the islands. Notwithstanding this feeling, however, the Filipino opinion is that the form of government had outlived its usefulness, and this opinion is shared by practically all Americans in the islands, even by those who advanced the idea that it should have been remedied by the abolition of the popular assembly. It may at first glance appear that the form of government is now operating smoothly, since, under Governor General Harrison, the annual appropriation bills have been passed and other bills advocated by the Governor General have |